Fretting over your sick baby again? It’s time to pay attention to his gut health

Share this article with other mums

Your baby's gut plays a crucial role in helping to build his natural defences to fight against infections. Read on to find out more.

We want our babies to grow up happy and healthy. To ensure this, we try to take many protective and proactive measures to keep our little ones free of infections as far as possible.

However, babies are babies, and as part of their natural learning journey, they will pick things up and put them into their mouth. Occasionally, your baby may pick up infection-causing germs.

So how do you help him cope with these germs? Well most definitely not by sanitizing everything in sight with anti-bacterial wipes and antiseptics. In fact, believe it or not, the one thing that you should be doing to build your baby’s natural defences, is to actually work hard to cultivate good bacteria in your baby’s gut.

How does my baby’s gut influence his natural defences?

Here’s a quick fact: The gut is home to 70% of the body’s immune cells4 and trillion of friendly bacteria (or healthy gut microbiota)

Yes, the gut, or the gastrointestinal tract, is the largest immune organ in the body. It hosts your baby’s own little army of immune cells and friendly bacteria which help his natural defences – or the body’s ability to identify and kill bad germs that can cause infections — to function properly in the following ways:

1. Preventing infections: The friendly bacteria in the gut form a layer covering the wall of the gut. This extra layer acts as a barrier against infection-causing germs, by leaving no space on the gut wall for them to grow, thus protecting babies from infections.4,5

2. Helping to manage allergic reactions: The immune cells identify which substances are harmful and which are safe for your little one’s body. This function is extremely important in the management of allergies.4 Allergies typically happen when the immune system is hyperactive to a safe substance. This happens more often in babies, as the immune system is not yet fully developed. Healthy gut microbiota supports the development of immune system so that it will be less likely to react in a hyperactive manner to safe substances7.

Click on the next page to find out how you can nurture your baby’s healthy gut. Keep reading to find out how you can win in the Dumex Spot the Wonders Contest – Over $10, 000 worth of prizes, including staycation prizes and a $7,000 jackpot travel voucher, await the lucky winners!